A potential client had a website but lost it due to - he says - a mix-up with the domain renewals. He has now sent me a hard copy of his old engineering website - at the bottom it says copyright a different engineering firm in a different part of the country. What does a website copyright cover - is it the design or the photos on it or the words on it or all three? If I were to retype the words he's given me from the old website but use a different design, would this be a breach of copyright? Also, if copyright is breached, would it be my problem as a web designer or the engineering firm's problem? I assume that duplicating his old design for him would be asking for copyright trouble? Note: I haven't yet spoken to this potential client - I've just had emails and post from him - but wanted to seek your opinions before doing so.
First up: I'm not a lawyer, this is not legal advice etc. As for what is copyrighted: images yes, text yes, layout maybe depending on where it was originally sourced from. I would throw caution to the wind and not take this job, as it sounds like the client is generally a little bit shady. However, if he wants you to use the design of another companies website as inspiration, with original text and images that should be fine.
Just ask him to send you an email verifying that he has all rights to use the material he is asking you to copy. If he provides that to you, I would go ahead and do the project. If he is not willing to send you that simple email confirmation - I would not do it.
This would probably get you most of the way to ensuring that there would be no legal repercussions for you, but I think about it like this. If the other company chooses to sue you for copyright infringement, do you have the time and money to defend yourself? Do you need this job enough to risk spending a few days in court explaining the situation?
You can get sued when you have done nothing wrong. There is very little risk proceeding as I have suggested.
Many thanks all for your replies. The website the client has sent me the hard copy of was HIS OWN website - (copywrited to another engineering company but his OWN website - strange?) which had got lost due to a "renewal misunderstanding" - I don't yet know details as I wanted to think about things before speaking to him on the phone. My assumption - although I would obviously have to clarify by phone and in writing - was that the words and photos on the potential client's former website are his own. If they are his own words and his own photos of his own products - could I use the same words and photos - but a different design (masthead different, navigation buttons different, footer different but probably similar content layout) without infringing copywrite????????
That does not make a whole lot of sense. If it cannot be explained to you clearly, then I would proceed with caution. 1. You call it his "own" website. What does that mean? The only thing you can own on a website is the content. If that is copyrighted to someone else, what exactly is he claiming to own? 2. You don't lose a website due to "renewal" issues, you could lose a domain name that way.
I'd advise you, no matter how good of a friend the guy is, to go get a contract drawn up where he is removing you from liability and placing all the liability of any infringement that could arise on him. You should have something like that in your contract normally anyway. If you're not using contract it's time to start.
Many thanks to all who have replied - I really appreciate it. Your replies have firmed up doubts that were in the back of my mind. For this website - and any other redesigns that come along - would I be fairly safe if I: 1 redesign the website (new masthead, navigation, footer, etc) 2 get them to sign a contract stating that they own the copyright to the words and pictures that they wish me to put on their site - ie that they are their own words and pictures not the words and pictures of a third party?